


Will I Be Enough?

by TheCityLightShow



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (But Also Not Canon Compliant), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Guardians As The Weird Cousins, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Exactly Linear Telling, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), So Much Hurt But Also So Much Comfort, Sorry Not Sorry, Team as Family, Temporary Character Death, The Guantlet Being The Definition of Hand-Wavy Magic Fixing Everything, Vormir, angst like woah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-24 14:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17706053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCityLightShow/pseuds/TheCityLightShow
Summary: Usually when people came to Vormir, they knew what they wanted, but not always what they had to do. Maybe only one knows, but the other suspects. These two argue not for their lives, but for their deaths.“Will I be enough?” Asks Steve Rogers, and Tony Stark wishes there was a way he didn’t have to answer.A universe slightly to the left, where Steve and Tony married sometime around Age of Ultron, and Peter is Tony's (and almost Steve's) son.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, where the hell to begin with this one... I wrote it in December in a fit of bitterness, right when my depression was trying to kick my ass again. I didn't let it, but now you have this angsty bastard sat here. I wasn't going to post it, and then I was and then I wasn't and now... well. Someone will enjoy it. 
> 
> This mostly follows MCU canon, except Steve and Tony were married, Tony is Peter's legal guardian and Steve nearly was when Civil War happened. Peter never got dusted. Hopefully, the rest is somewhat self explanatory. 
> 
> It has two parts. Both are written. You can have the other one next week, but I feel like letting the first part stand on it's own for a couple of days. I apologise.

This was… a new one.

Usually when people came to Vormir, they knew what they wanted, but not always what they had to do. Most came willingly. Most left disappointed. Some left murderers, usually shoulder to shoulder with their betrayal… there had been arguments, of course. But never quite like this.

These two argue not for their lives, but for their deaths. Neither of them wants to save a world without the other in it. A third figure, as yet unnoticed but with a significant role in the events of the past and the events of yet to come, is on the precipice of realisation.

 

_“Oh my god, Tony!”_

_The voice broke free of the crowd, shield abandoned, as their ship finally fractured under the strain. Tony staggered out – Nebula was carrying Peter for him, now when Tony could barely stand – and collided with a warm, solid chest._

_“Tony, Tony oh my god you’re alive-” **Oh,** Tony realised, **it’s Steve**. _

_“Steve…” Tony whispered, desperately trying to extract himself from the embrace so he could see his husband’s face. “Steve.” Steve pulled him back a little, pressing a tender kiss to his forehead. The moment seemed to linger and settle – more people were coming forward, but Tony couldn’t care._

_“I’ve never been so happy to see anybody in my life.” Steve told him, and then Tony felt him stiffen. “Tony, where’s Peter?” Tony tried to turn – Nebula should’ve followed him straight out? “Tony, where’s our son?” Steve’s voice was quiet, cold, not in anger but in fear that Tony might be about to tell him the unthinkable-_

_“Here!” Nebula’s voice called out. “I have him, he’s okay.” Steve sagged against Tony, gently shifting to support him, while still reaching out for their son. It was going to be okay._  

 

They had trekked up the mountainside in silence, hand-in-hand. The solidarity between them, the tension and the peace, had been unusual though not entirely unique. Usually pairs who came here were energetic, fraught with nerves, or angry at the universe. Sometimes one is unconscious, and the journey is slow, but that is rare – though not as rare as this.

Maybe only one had known, but the other had suspected. He’d been gearing for a fight but was still holding off onto the last moment. Maybe it was hope, or it could have been denial.

 

_Nebula sits away from the table around which those left have gathered. She wonders why Stark allows them to argue still – he knows what has to happen now, to retrieve the missing stone once more. She’d told him, and he hadn’t been surprised. All he had said that it was a terrible fate for Gamora._

_And then he’d promised to change it._

_Nebula knows a dysfunctional family when she sees one now. She thinks. They’re not like the Guardians – maybe this level of argument is a recent thing, or they’re more estranged than Stark had led her to believe, she doesn’t care. She mostly cares that it’s taking too long. She cares that Gamora died because she couldn’t handle being hurt – hurt that Stark already took his tools to and eased, just a little. She will miss him when he goes to Vormir._

_“If anyone can handle the gauntlet…” she speaks and is surprised when the table quiets to listen to her, “it is the man Thanos marked as an equal.”_

_Stark grimaces but doesn’t not contradict her. The table slowly turns to look at him. Nebula watches not the man Stark had called husband, but the dark-skinned man, with braces made of tech. It must be Stark’s Rhodey – she knows him by no other name. “Tones?” he asks, voice soft, and Stark looks up at him. It is the only gaze he meets._

_“He said that I was like him,” Stark swallows. “Burdened by knowledge. He knew my name.”_

 

They had reached the pass where the figure had risen up in front of them – recognition had burst into hatred, one of the bright souls flickering madly – but then they knew, whether they had known before or not. That they would not leave to find another way speaks to the broken illusions of each man. Or maybe, simply, that they are tired.

“Will I be enough?”

Anthony Stark-Rogers flinches at question Steven Rogers-Stark poses to him and wishes there was a way to avoid it.

 

_“ **No** , Rogers.” Anthony snaps, and Thor watches as Steven winces. Having been updated by Bruce, who seems to have collated the full picture, Thor doesn’t know if he agrees with Anthony’s anger or not. He thinks there’s a piece of the story missing – a disagreement over legislation seems like too little. “Steve. I need you **here** , for Peter.” _

_“I would take care of the young Stark.” Thor points out, “you need not worry for him.” Anthony sighs._

_“If you don’t want me there-,” Steven begins, but Anthony waves him off. The room is tense – Rhodes and Natasha seem to feel it the most. The rest are merely confused. “I don’t- I can’t let you just go off again, Tony, whether- whether I lost that right or not.”_

_Anthony looks up at Steven then, and something is soft in his gaze. Thor thinks his mother had looked at his father like that, even when he was breaking her heart. “You haven’t lost it.” Anthony tells him. He sighs deeply and glances at the lady of purple and blue. Rabbit- Rocket- had called her Nebula. “Alright. So, Steve comes with me to Vormir.”_

 

Tony will not let Steve give his life for the universe, not now, not ever again. Tony had known since Nebula had explained to him what always awaits on Vormir, the crime to be committed, the sacrifice to be made… he’d known that he would never wield the gauntlet. He thinks Nebula knows that too. “Of course.” Tony says, and he can’t look at Steve’s face. He’d known who would have to come with him too, as much as he’d tried to avoid it – but who else could he ask this of? “Of course, you would be.”

“ _Would_ be-,” Steve starts, and Tony can feel the moment Steve realises. “No, Tony _no_.”

“It’s the best way.” Tony’s got no fight in him. He hasn’t in a long time. “Earth needs you more than it needs me.”

“You are _literally_ the futurist, Tony, what- Tony, I’m not going to- to- no. No. I can’t, Tony, no matter what you think of me now.”

“Why would you argue with me on this Steve? You can bring back Barnes, and Sam, give our son back his best friends, Thor his brother back, his _people_ , Strange can be returned to the Sanctum-,” Steve cuts him off.

“Because I want _you_ , Tony!” He yells it, and immediately feels the shame burn on his face, but he won’t take it back. “I- It doesn’t mean enough to me, Tony, not at the cost of… No.”

“I think there was always meant to be more time,” Tony tells him, using the hand Steve’s still holding to tug him closer – and Steve goes, Steve will always go now. Tony draws him in, draws him down, and Steve buries his face in Tony’s neck. “You’d think we’re owed it.” Tony jokes, chokes on it a little, and Steve wraps his arms around Tony’s waist, hugs him tight as Tony wraps his arms around his neck.

“I can’t do it, Tony, I can’t.” Steve tells him in nothing more than a whisper, “I have to fix this, and I can’t do that, not without you.”

“Can you ask me to?” Tony asks him, pulling back. It’s honest curiosity, there will be no repercussions of Steve’s answer, it’s not even a trap; but it sets these events in motion. It means everything. _What are you willing to do for each other,_ the universe is asking. There is always more to give. “Could you ask me to push you over the edge?”

“Tony…” Steve is pleading, and Tony pulls him down to kiss him – a first and a last all at once. Tony kisses him as he always did, like he’s got all the time in the universe to savour this moment, and Steve tries, but he knows the end is coming, know it acutely in a way he never has before. The train, the plane, Washington, Sokovia, Siberia… none of it had the finality of this soft goodbye kiss.  

“Do you honestly think,” Tony begins softly, gently resting a hand on Steve’s face that Steve can’t help but lean into, “that if I had ever intended that we wouldn’t work it out, that I wouldn’t have filed for divorce?” Tony’s smiling, and Steve’s face falls open in shock. “I meant every word of my vows.”

“I meant mine too,” Steve promises him, even as Tony’s pulling back. “I’m not ready t-to part.” Steve’s voice cracks, he’s crying in earnest and Tony is desperately trying not to, because they _would be okay_.

 

_The third figure makes it up the rock face then, unnoticed, and sees them pulling back, sees his fathers crying for eachother – and slips from the precipice of realisation straight into horror._  

 

Tony lets go of Steve’s hand, at the edge, just as Peter vaults the rocks.

“Dad, _no!_ ” he yells, stumbling forward – his fathers both whip around to stare at him.

“Peter, what the hell-?” Steve sounds faint because no, no he can’t do this now, not if Peter has to live through it too. Tony just looks impossibly sad.

“Well, that settles it. My boys. My best boys. God,” Tony smiles, glancing between them. “I’m going to miss you.

“Dad, you _can’t_ -” Peter tries to insist, but it’s not enough.

Tony steps back.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry this took so long! I went home for the weekend and had no internet on my laptop, which aside from being super weird, was super fucking annoying... but it's here! Part two, so without further ado...

 

 

 

Steve waits.

 

It’s been a long time now. Maybe no time at all – a week returned in the face of almost two years gone, well, it’s nothing at all, is it? He still hasn’t celebrated. How can he? Bucky and Sam are back by his side – hell, they won’t fucking _leave_ – but Tony is- Tony is-

Peter’s still unconscious in the hospital bed. Steve can’t let go of his hand, won’t let go. Peter can’t wake up here alone. Steve even made them move the bed – he sits between Peter and the door, the only defence left that he can provide, keeping Peter’s right hand safe in his. His left is bandaged up, apparently healing fine, and Steve hopes the doctors are right.

 

_People start reappearing as soon as Peter settles his hand into the gauntlet – and it’s so big on him, but he wields it regardless. His eyes are closed, and Steve watches as his son’s face contorts with the effort of it all. He wishes that he could do this for him, but Peter has risen to the task magnificently._

_It’s like a ripple, a wave, seeping out and slowly rebuilding life itself._

_The dust had been long since blown away, but people reform in blades of light. Steve can only see those forming behind Peter and it’s not quite reverse order of the snap. Steve has never met Stephen Strange, but he’s instantly recognisable – he looks incredibly smug as he looks around, but then… Steve can tell he’s looking for something in particular. Someone. His gaze lands on Steve and flicks to his hands, and then he sees Peter. Steve can’t watch his reaction._

_“Where’s the kid? Where’s the kids?!” An impossibly familiar voice behind him, and oh god, Steve turns then. Bucky, angry, the most alive Steve has seen him in years, demanding to know where – oh god he’s asking after Ned, Peter’s Ned. Sam is yelling back, **I don’t know man, I don’t know, where’s Rhodes?** And Steve wishes he quite had the answers, but- _

_“D-dad?”_

_Peter’s voice shakes, and Steve is back at his side in a moment. “Hey kiddo.” Steve tells him, and when Peter opens his eyes, Steve takes three seconds too long to school his shock._

_“I don’t know if I can do this.” Peter whispers, and he’s crying, he’s crying with eyes that won’t settle on a colour and have entirely lost Tony’s brown. “Dad, what if I can’t do this?” Steve pulls him close and presses a firm kiss to the boy’s head. He looks so young, so impossibly young all of a sudden and Steve wishes he could change everything._

_The gauntlet ends up pressed against Steve’s side as Peter latches onto the only comfort he’s got left, and Steve is only too willing to hug his son back. “You’re already doing it, Petey, I promise. You’re doing so well.”_

_“I don’t think I can hold on-,”_

 

There’s a little knock on the door, and then Natasha is sticking her head around it. She’s smiling, something tiny and honest and Steve may get used to it one day. Her hair is red again. Steve had missed that.

“Thor got word from the Asgardians this morning.” She tells him, “Peter did good.”

And then she’s gone again. She doesn’t ask how Steve is, and he’s certain she’s already asked the nurses about Peter. It’s all a case of waiting now. Something still eases in Steve. “You here that Peter?” Steve tries to smile. “You brought back a whole _race_ , right back from the verge of total loss.”

His voice still shakes. The heart monitor is steady. Peter doesn’t wake.

 

_“Why the kid all of a sudden?” Rocket bites out, and Rhodey has to agree._

_Peter isn’t here. He’d come back, handed over the stone to Shuri for safe keeping, and completely ignored his new friend as he stormed off. Steve had collapsed into the floor and stayed there, on his knees, face buried in his hands. He looks like he’s praying. “I- On Vormir…” Steve starts. Stops. Breathes. Rhodey realises belatedly he’s about to cry._

_“Steve… where’s-,”_

_“That fool.” Nebula bites out suddenly. She looks angrier than normal, and Rhodey honestly doesn’t know what that means for her. “He had the stone?”_

_Steve nods absently, and his shoulders are shaking. Rhodey no longer wants to know why, but he needs to, he needs to._

_“What did you do, Rogers?” Rhodey asks, and it’s sharp, but Steve-_

_“He stepped. I had to choose.” Steve’s voice is hollow. “I caught Peter.”_

 

Steve doesn’t know what’s going to happen next. He’s legally Peter’s last remaining guardian, but whether Peter will want him or not… Steve can’t consider. A life without one of them sounds impossible, but without both of them… it’s not something he can do.

“He’ll wake up.” Bucky grumbles. “Or I’m gonna hav’ words.” He won’t even be looking at Steve, so Steve doesn’t look back. He hums, but it’s a hollow noise. He realises that Sam and Bucky are playing cards when Sam lets out a little “ha!”

The heart monitor continues.

 

_Peter’s heart bottoms out, no, no no no-_

_He knows he’s going over too, he’s misjudged the balance and he can grab Dad’s hand as he slips back off the world, but he’s just going to take them both down- Peter’s unafraid of this moment now he’s in it. The horror on his father’s face is worth not having to be alone again. He can cope. They’ll find another way – or Steve will. Dad #2-_

_An arm snags around Peter’s waist, hauling him back. “No!”_

_His grip slips._

_“No, no no no! No, Steve- Dad- Dad no- I can’t- Let me- **no.** ” Peter fights to reach out, but he’s being hauled back and Dad’s still falling, and Steve won’t. let. go. _

_“I’m so sorry-”_

_“Let me go, I can- I can-” Peter tries to break his hold, tries and tries but Steve is unrelenting steel._

_“You’d- you can’t catch him at that force,” Steve sounds wretched but Peter doesn’t care, doesn’t give a single **shit**_ _right now. “You’d break his neck.”_

_“He’s- I won’t- just let me so he’s not- he’s not-”_

_“Peter, Peter I’m so sorry-”_

_“SHUT UP, shut up, he’s not- Dad- dad, he’s not- he can’t, he promised… he promised.” Peter stops fighting, the impossible seeping in like the ice-cold plunge into a lake. The shock comes first, he thinks numbly, isn’t that how it goes?_

_“I’m so sorry.” Steve tells him, not even loosening his grip as Peter gives in. “We need to- we need to head back down, get back to- to-.” He doesn’t finish, but Peter doesn’t need him to. Steve carefully rights them both back onto their feet. Peter nearly looks, but it’s not- if he doesn’t look, he doesn’t know. “Peter?”_

_Peter looks up at him. Dad #2. Captain America. The only man who had in any way rivalled Tony for Peter’s affection, and now Peter sees him for what he really is in this moment. Maybe always had been. A young, war-torn man, who has fallen a little short of the world’s expectations._

_“You should have let me fall.”_

 

Steve can’t get the words out of his head. He still doesn’t know if Peter meant them. He doesn’t know what they’ll do if he did – not that he knows any more about what they’ll do if he didn’t, but that still seems like less of a shit show.

Steve wonders, idly, if they’re the only people in the world dealing with a loss right now, or if there’s still chaos on the streets outside. A part of him wonders if the sky is still as blue as it was, but the rest of him knows it won’t be, not when Iron Man will never- will never-

Wait.

Steve turns towards the door then – he hadn’t realised that Bruce, Rhodey and Natasha had slipped in to join Bucky and Sam at some point, but he can hear- no he can’t, it’s impossible, surely it is-

Bucky looks up suddenly – _are they playing poker?_ – and grins brightly. “No fuckin’ way.” He mutters, getting up even though it dislodges the table and the gameplay, ignoring the other’s yells. “Yeah, you can hear him Stevie, what the _fuck_ -”

Steve gets up, ignoring how even his body aches at how long he’s been still, and sticks his head out of the room door – and surely they can all hear it now.

“WHERE THE _FUCK_ IS MY HUSBAND? I NEED TO KICK HIS ASS!” Steve chokes on a laugh, even as Rhodey and Natasha crowd him out of the doorway, pushing past into the corridor to stare – the shouter has just rounded the corner. “NO I AM _NOT_ DEAD SHARON, AND I DON’T NEED A CHECK-UP! I NEED-” he looks away from the determined looking nurse, and stalls. Steve’s heart skips it’s next few beats and immediately starts up a rhythm that would take any one else to an early grave. “You’re alright.” Tony Stark says, breathless relief. Rhodey might be cheering, Natasha might have burst into startled laughter unlike anything Steve’s ever heard before, but Steve’s universe has narrowed down on his husband, miraculously, blessedly, alive.

Steve’s grinning before he’s even quite realised he’s doing it, and Tony’s shoving past the nurse trying to box him downstairs to admit him, breaking into a run to make it down the corridor before someone can stop him. Steve’s sweeps him up into a hug in the doorway, unable to help himself, but Tony accepts it gladly, and god, Tony’s alive, Tony’s alive alive alive, lungs breathing heart pounding-

Tony breaks himself away from the hug, kissing Steve soundly, before- whacking him over the head. “What the _fuck, Steve!”_ Steve doesn’t drop him, and honestly, he couldn’t stop grinning even if fucking Victor Von Doom chose this moment to crash the party. “ _Why did Peter use the gauntlet?!_ ” Tony demanded. Steve’s heart clenched, but Tony was already leaning up to kiss him before he could explain. Steve was never ever going to turn down the opportunity ever again.

“Oh god, I died.” Comes a groan from the room they’re hogging the doorway too, and shit, that’s it, Steve’s crying and he may not stop for a while because- “I’m dead.”

“ _Peter_.” Steve doesn’t know whose voice cracks worse, and they’re both dragging each other into the room then, to sit at the edge of his bed and in the god-forsaken plastic chair. “Not yet, you’re fucking not, what the hell were you _thinking_?” Tony demands, even as he gently pulls Peter up into a hug that has the teenager shaking.

“You’re okay,” Peter mumbles into Tony’s shoulder. Tony leans back and flicks his forehead, before immediately hugging him close again.

“Of course I’m okay, kid. I’m always okay.

 

“We’re okay.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have some small notes and plans for this universe should I get to them - would y'all want them adding to this, or to a series? :)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still on the hellsite fantasia that is **[tumblr](http://thecitylightshow.tumblr.com/)** , and you should totally come yell at me about Endgame. Or the post-Avengers 2012 bubble I wish I was living in. Seriously.


End file.
